The Young Engineers on the Gulf eBook

“No; but we have Sambo Ebony here, and he’s
going to be hurt if he tries to stir.”

President and treasurer of the Melliston Company raced
to the spot. Barely sixty seconds afterward
Foreman Corbett, with four negroes and one Italian
laborer, also came up.

“Corbett, you have the handcuffs I gave you
the other night, haven’t you?” Tom asked.

“Yes, sir. Here they are.”

Tom took the steel bracelets, ordering Mr. Sambo Ebony
to turn over and lie face downward, with his hands
behind his back. Then the handcuffs were slipped
over the black wrists.

“Now, Sambo,” called Tom laughingly, “we’ll
set you on your feet and whistle the rogues’
march for you all the way.”

“Yah, yah, yah!” jeered one of the negroes
who had come up with Foreman Corbett, as he gazed
contemptuously up and down the bulky figure of Mr.
Ebony. “Yo’ done been tellin’
us ’spectable cullud fo’ks dat de great
way to injye life was to be tough an’ smaht,
lak yo’se’f. How ye’ feel erbout
it now? Doan’ yo’ wish yo’
been mo’ ‘spectable yo’se’f?
Doan’ ye’ done wish dat ye’ had
been to camp-meeting a few times in yo’ life?
Doan’ yo’ wish ye’ been honest
most er de time, an’ been a hahd-wo’kin’,
pay-ye’-bills niggah lak some ob de rest oh us?
Yo’ fool lump er tar, yo’ boun’
ter go de way ob all de wicked—–­down
to ye’ grave in misery an’ sorrow.
It’s de way oh all ob yo’ lazy, ugly,
wuthless kind!”

“I’ve heard philosophers talk,”
laughed Dick, in an aside to Tom Reade, “but
I can’t say that I ever yet listened to a trained
philosopher who had the truth of life down any more
pat than the negro workman who just now gave his views.”

“On all matters of good behavior wise men of
all degrees hold about the same views,” nodded
Reade, “even though they may express their thoughts
in differing grades of speech. This good negro
knows just where the bad negro has failed in life.”

Mr. Sambo Ebony was marched off to jail. Even
up to the minute when he was sentenced to twenty years’
imprisonment the big black stubbornly refused to give
his real name. He was therefore taken away to
prison under the name “Sambo Ebony.”

Evarts got off with eight years and four months in
prison. He is still serving that sentence.

Hawkins and his crew of gamblers and bootleggers were
sentenced to two years apiece, as only misdemeanor
charges could be preferred against them.

From the foregoing it will be inferred that the proposed
jail delivery by other members of the gang from elsewhere
did not come off according to plan. The truth
was that the citizens of Blixton, when appealed to,
organized a strong guard which was thrown around the
jail. Doubtless the gang-members were warned
in time, and so did not attempt to commit wholesale
suicide by running against a citizens’ posse.

Mr. Bascomb is still president of the Melliston Company,
and he is holding up his head. No further fear
of blackmailers oppresses him.